exploits of some soldiers who had enjoyed too much wine,
and in the seventh century b.c.e. numerous inhabitants of the
city of Assur invested in wine imports, undoubtedly destined
for private consumption.
Wine was best served alongside meat, the two essential
components of a festive banquet fi t for kings and gods. Most
common was the meat of domesticated animals. Beef, mutton,
and poultry (from ducks and geese, for the chicken arrived in
Mesopotamia from India only in the fi rst millennium b.c.e.)
were prepared in a variety of styles, including grilled, roasted,
steamed, cooked in water, or cooked inside a pie or as part of
a soup. Pork was less common, although no taboo prevented
its consumption.
Recipes for various meat dishes survive in a group of texts
from the city of Larsa, dating to the early second millennium
b.c.e. Th ese oldest-known recipes are extremely elaborate and
give considerable insight into the haute cuisine of Babylonia,
a truly international cuisine that incorporated recipes that
refl ected Assyrian and Elamite cooking styles. While not all
i n g r e d i e nt s , e s p e c i a l l y t h e m a ny s pi c e s a nd h e r b s , c a n b e i d e n-
tifi ed with certainty, the sheer amount of eff ort invested in the
preparation of these dishes illustrates an appreciation for rich
culinary delights. As such, they counterbalance descriptions
of the bland basic diet of ordinary people, who ate meat only
on rare occasions, usually during festivals. Fish, however, was
far more common on the menu. Fish was widely available in
the rivers and, according to Greek historian Herodotus, the
exclusive diet of the inhabitants of the swamps in the extreme
south of Mesopotamia, who are said to have eaten cakes made
from ground-up fi sh instead of bread.
Th e Near Eastern diet also included items that seem alien,
such as locusts, which were either grilled on spits or ground
up and processed into cakes. However, other foodstuff s that
seem very ordinary were highly unusual in the ancient Near
East. Eggs, for example, were almost exclusively reserved for
the plates of kings and gods. When the Assyrian king Ashur-
nasirpal II (883–859 b.c.e.) stated in an inscription that he
served, among a wealth of gastronomic highlights, 10,000
eggs at the inauguration feast of his new palace in Kalchu,
many of his guests would have eaten these treats for the fi rst
time in their lives.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY CONSTANCE A. COOK
Th e production of food in ancient Asia and the Pacifi c went
through the same uneven transition from hunting and gath-
ering to farming seen in the rest of the world. Some regions
were resistant to this change, while in others cultivation tech-
niques seemed to spread rapidly. Archaeology reveals some
correlation between the production and use of pottery and
the rise of agricultural and sedentary communities. Th ese
communities tended also to develop ranked social patterns
and reveal more material evidence for food storage and the
use of food and beverages in ritual contexts.
Th e earliest hunter-gatherer communities occupied
southern China (south of the Yangtze River) and upland
Southeast Asia (modern-day Burma, Th ailand, Laos, and
Vietnam), possibly aft er having migrated from the west over
one million years ago. Th ey hunted wild pigs, deer, gaur, rhi-
noceros , stegodon (a t y pe of elepha nt), bov id s (a ntelope, oxen,
sheep, and goats), monkeys, muntjacs (a type of deer), tapir,
hyena, pandas, squirrels, rodents, bats, birds, fi sh, mollusks,
shellfi sh, and other fauna. Th ey gathered wild grains, fruits,
nuts, yams, taro, legumes and other fl ora.
Th e food sources available naturally varied according to
environment. Mainland Asians had access to large animals
and cereals, whereas those on some of the islands of South-
east Asia and the Pacifi c did not. Along seacoasts and riv-
ers, those who lived in the mangrove swamps in southern
Th ailand foraged for marine and river estuarine fauna. In
highland areas or plains there is evidence that some early
peoples began small-scale cultivation of tubers. Foraging in
rainforests and forest horticulture were likely sources of food
in Southeast Asia and island Southeast Asia. Wild rice was
also available throughout much of south China and mainland
Southeast Asia.
Th e transition to farming and a more sedentary lifestyle
may have begun 14,000 years ago during the Paleolithic Era,
although the large-scale adoption of agriculture and animal
husbandry is linked to the Neolithic Revolution and occurred
in diff erent regions at diff erent times—and some places, such
as Australia, island Southeast Asia, and north and northwest-
ern Asia not at all or not until the historical period. Because
of changes in the climate, with northern areas becoming no-
ticeably warmer, a variety of farming styles and dietary habits
developed. Rice was cultivated in wetland paddies beginning
in the middle Yangtze River basin possibly as early as 12,000
years ago. From there it spread southward and eventually
northward.
Early peoples also cultivated yams, adzuki beans, mel-
ons, fruits, and vegetables in addition to hunting. Th e 8,000-
year-old site of Jiahu in Henan Province in the Huai River
valley shows that the people cultivated fi rst japonica and then
indica rice as well as other plants. Th ey also had access to
buff alo, alligator, fi sh, and other animals. In the 7,000-year-
old site of Hemudu (Yuyao, Zhejiang, near the Pacifi c coast),
where intensive rice farming occurred, archeologists have
found evidence of domesticated pigs, water buff aloes, and
dogs. Th ey hunted deer, muntjac, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger,
bear, and birds. As coastal dwellers, they speared fi sh, whales,
and sharks. Th ey also ate acorns, water chestnuts, wild jub-
jubes (a Chinese date), water lily, gourds, and beans.
Th e variable climate in the north encouraged people
around the Yangtze River and its tributaries to cultivate mil-
let in dryland fi elds in the Yellow River basin, especially in
Hebei and Henan. Th ey cultivated foxtail and broomcorn
millets and eventually soybeans, sorghum, wheat, barley,
vegetables, melons, fruit, and hemp. By 6000 b.c.e. dryland
farming communities were well established and extended as476 food and diet: Asia and the Pacific